UN says 7,900 migrants died or disappeared on migration routes in 2025

Nearly 7,900 people died or vanished along migration routes in 2025, pushing the total number of migrants reported dead or missing since 2014 past 80,000, according to the United Nations’ migration agency.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration said the toll reflects the dangers people face when safe routes are unavailable, forcing them into perilous and irregular journeys. The agency urged governments to muster the political resolve needed to prevent more deaths along migration corridors.

“The deaths or disappearance of nearly 7,900 people were documented on global migration routes worldwide in 2025,” the IOM said.

The IOM’s Missing Migrants Project “has documented more than 80,000 deaths and disappearances during migration since 2014,” the agency said.

The IOM said the 7,904 deaths and disappearances recorded in 2025 “mark a continuation and escalation of a global failure to end these preventable deaths”.

“2025 was marked by an unprecedented level of aid cuts and restriction of information on dangerous irregular routes, rendering more and more missing migrants invisible,” it said.

At the same time, the agency said, “an even more hidden population” of at least around 340,000 family members has been directly affected by the “ongoing crisis of missing migrants”.

Those families are left to navigate the psychological, social, legal and economic consequences of a disappearance that remains unresolved, the agency said.

The IOM said the May 2026 International Migration Review Forum offered an opportunity to shift that trajectory.

“Sustained political will is needed to save lives on migration routes worldwide and make visible the families most impacted by these preventable losses,” the agency said.